Occasionally, if we register a domain (the address for your website) for a client and we do not make the registration information private, we receive something like below in the mail:

We also occasionally get calls from clients asking if they should fill this out and pay it. Don’t! If you read the first paragraph closely, they say “When you switch today…”. In my opinion, this is a carefully worded letter try to get you to switch companies (at a price 3x the amount of what we charge). You can simply disregard the letter and nothing will happen. Feel free to contact us with any question.

Clients ask us from time to time, “Why are the emails I send to a particular person going to spam?”. This is most likely due to a spam filter on the person’s email account (it rarely has anything to do with your email hosting company). The problem with this is that different email systems use different email filters. Here are a few things you can do:

Try removing your signature: Sometimes there might be something in your signature that is triggering it.

Ask the recipient to “white-list” your email: The process for doing this will vary so they should ask their IT professional.

Don’t use a free email account: Try using your paid work email address instead of an aol or gmail address.

Try changing the subject or content of the email: Different spam filters use different criteria for determining if your email is spam. Try changing some words around.

Remove the links from your email: If you have links in your email to well know spam sites or unknown sites, this could be it.

Use an email service for sending out bulk emails: DO NOT use your personal or work email address for sending out mass emails. This could be a violation of the CAN-SPAM ACT of 2003 and will get you blacklisted quickly.

Being blacklisted basically means certain email providers deem your email address, domain or ip address as one that is sending out spam.

There can be a few reasons you were blacklisted:

You actually are sending out spam. You should NEVER send unsolicited emails (especially from your personal email account). If you want to send out emails to clients or potential clients we recommend using a service such as mailchimp. They have measures in place to allow people to unsubscribe if they don’t want to receive your emails.

Someone else from your company is sending out spam. Unfortunately, there is no way to tell this but your company should have policies in place to prevent this.

You have a virus. Sometimes if you have a virus on your computer, they will use your computer to send out spam. This is how they avoid getting caught since the emails are not actually coming from their computers. Give us a call or download a great anti-virus program.

Your email is hosted on a shared server and someone else on that server is sending out spam. This is the most difficult to prevent since it is up to other people. Most web hosting companies also host your email and also host other companies’ email on that same machine with the same IP address. Spam blocking companies just identify the offender by IP address so they block everyone on that machine. That is why we recommend cloud hosted email with Google Apps for Work.

How to (try to) remove yourself from an email blacklist:

First, make sure you are blacklisted. Look at the error message you receive back and there is usually a link in it with a reason your message got sent back. In the example above, it is 521 5.2.1 : (HVU:B2) https://postmaster.aol.com/error-codes#554hvub2 . If you click on that link, it takes you too a page with an explanation why your message was returned.

If you are sending out the spam yourself, STOP immediately and switch to a mail program such as mailchimp. If you get caught too many times you may be permanently blacklisted and even fined.

Make sure you do not have virus on your computer or your cloud based email wasn’t hacked (you would usually get a lot of returned emails or angry friends emailing you if this was the case).

If your email is on a shared server, and you don’t have a virus and you are not the one sending spam, we recommend switching to Google Apps for Work. Otherwise, this may continue to happen.

Here are some sites to go to to try to remove your email AFTER you fix what caused it in the first place:

Everyone knows running a nonprofit can be difficult and expensive. Google offers free or inexpensive tools to make your job a little bit easier.

Here are just a few:

Google Apps for Nonprofits:

Let Google host your email (without changing your email addresses) along with your calendar, contacts and files. Our office has used this for years and I can’t imagine going back to the “old way”. Never have to purchase Microsoft office or an expensive server again. This is free for nonprofits.

Google Ad grants:

Google will give you up to $10,000 per month towards AdWords™ to increase awareness for you nonprofit. Use these ads to promote events you may be having, increase volunteerism or to promote your donations page.

Youtube Nonprofit Program:

Showcase what your nonprofit does in video format. Enable the donation module so that viewers can donate right from the video or create a call to action to visit your site or sign up for an event.

These are just a few things Google will do for your nonprofit. Contact us today if you need help with any of these.

Great news for the typing impaired. You can now “voice type” in Google Docs (similar to Dragon Naturally Speaking). Simply open up a document in Google Docs by going to https://docs.google.com/ or Google Drive, click on tools on the top menu bar and then voice typing.

Google Voice Typing

No doubt this will get better over time but right off the bat, you can use commands like “new line”, “new paragraph” and “period” to end a sentence. You can also voice dictate on the Google play store and Apple store versions of Google Docs.

Most of you have noticed a new icon on the bottom right of your computer lately (if you are running Windows 7, 8, or 8.1). Due to strong competition (and a generally horrible Windows 8 consumer experience), Microsoft is offering Windows 10 for free. I’ll bet your wondering if you should upgrade? As with all new software you should generally wait a few months before upgrading to let other people test the new software and allow MS to fix some bugs. We recommend most of our clients reserve their copy of Windows 10 (you have up to a year for the free upgrade) but DO NOT install the upgrade yet. The upgrade is supposedly starting to roll out July 29th, 2015 but you will have a choice whether or not if you want to install it at that time. Here is some info on the new features (yes, you will get your start menu back) http://goo.gl/fXwoCP . Feel free to contact us if you would like a professional install this for you.

If you need Internet access while you are away from your home or office we highly recommend using secure public wifi access (make sure it requires a password to log in) but we realize that can’t always be done. If you don’t have the data left on your cell phone plan, we suggest Karma wireless . They are a pay as you go, no contract portable Internet access company and we have had great success with them and our clients. Data never expires and you can even earn extra free data by sharing your access with others, best of all, you only pay for the data you use every month.

We have all received them, emails from some one we barely know asking us to send them money or click on a link. This is caused by the sender’s email getting hacked. Back in the day, this was the result of a virus on a person’s computer going through their outlook address book and sending an email through outlook to all the recipients. Today, it is much more likely due to the fact that a “bad guy” got into their web based email. It might not even be their fault. For example, I have had a Yahoo! based email that I haven’t used in years with a pretty strong password. Much to my dismay, it was hacked and emails were sent out on my behalf. I haven’t even logged into the account in years so I know I didn’t have a virus on my computer and I know someone didn’t create a fake Yahoo! looking site and trick me into logging in (two common ways thieves get into your account). Yahoo! must have been hacked.

We occasionally receive calls about this but unfortunately there is not much you can do after the hack. The thief now most likely made a copy of all the email addresses and can “spoof” your email address any time he/she wants making it look like an email to your contacts is coming from you. If you are using a web based email like Yahoo! or Gmail we highly recommend you turn on two-step or two-factor authentication (just Google it or call us). This will require that whomever has your password will also need your cell phone to receive a second “password” in order to log in. If you have already been hacked, we recommend the following:

Switch to a more secure web based email such as Gmail

Change your password to something very secure from a computer you are sure doesn’t have a virus

Turn on two step authentication

Send everyone in your contact list an email saying the email wasn’t from you and you have taken steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again

People ask us all the time “How do I avoid getting a virus?” or “How did I get this virus?”. We always tell people, unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to avoid getting a virus. Even a Mac can get a virus (Google it). The main way anti-virus companies learn about new viruses is by someone catching the virus and then finding a cure (much like a human virus). Here are some tips:

Don’t open attachments from people you don’t know.

Use a web based email such as gmail or yahoo! since these emails do not get downloaded to your computer.